Details
NZ2764NW RABY GATE
1833/27/10164 BYKER
22-JAN-07 NOS. 1-52, AND ATTACHED WALLS, SEATS,
FENCES, PERGOLAS AND STEPS
SHIPLEY RISE
BYKER
NOS. 1-55, AND ATTACHED WALLS, SEATS,
FENCES, PERGOLAS AND STEPS
RABY GATE
BYKER
STRUCTURE HOUSING DISTRICT HEATING SYS
TEM
GV II*
Perimeter block of 107 flats. 1971-4 by Ralph Erskine's Arkitektkontor; site architect Vernon Gracie; structural engineer, White, Young and Partners; main contractor, Stanley Miller Limited. In situ concrete cross wall construction, with concrete strip foundations and ground beams, clad in strong brown, red, orange and buff patterned metric modular brick patterning to road elevations, red and buff brick to inner face, with white eternit panels to upper floors and elaborate timber detailing at all levels. Pre-cast cantilever brackets cast into cross walls. Pale blue sheet metal roofs, with projecting lift and stair towers rising to metal-clad points and forming important townscape features. Prominent boiler flue at end of Raby Gate adjoins the Shipley Street Baths, which provided the district heating system when the block was first built. Five-eight storeys, with semi-basement at junction with Raby Street. Two-storey family maisonettes at ground-floor level, set within walled gardens on inner face, with smaller maisonettes above accessed from balconies on every third level. These balconies are semi-independent structures to reduce noise, with a seat or planting box covering the gap between the balcony and the building. Living rooms and bedrooms are set above or below the entrance level, which has kitchen-diners with entrance doors set in pairs. Balconies to bedrooms double as fire escape routes.
Raby Gate has prominent green timber balconies and access galleries on red subframe, with blue ends enclosed where the lifts and stairs provide access. Brown fences, pergolas and fixed seating to ground-floor maisonettes. Shipley Rise with blue enclosed end balconies and green balconies. All windows of timber, in timber surrounds and with aluminium opening lights. The windows facing the north are double glazed with wide gap. Timber doors with glazed panel, many renewed in hardwood, with fixed seat to side. The north face with red and yellow ventilators, with bold patterns in brick denoting the entrances into the estate. Here, too, old stone features are incorporated, said to come from Newcastle's Old Town Hall (Progressive Architecture). The interiors of the maisonettes simple, with stairs leading up from kitchen/diner, still divided by original counter in some flats. North side with retaining walls, green fences, blue pergolas. Situated in open area immedietaly south of Shipley Rise, there is an irregular four-sided concrete structure with red brick roof, housing the original Chirton district heating system; it has roof top access steps and steps down to the lower door.
This and the section between Dalton Crescent and Shipley Walk were the first part of the Byker Wall to be built and established its distinctive style. In March 1967 the Housing Architect's Department proposed the building of a barrier block to shelter the area from a proposed inner motorway to be built along the line of the present relief road and the metro, and this was revised by May 1968 after a Conservative majority had come to power. In 1969 Ralph Erskine was recommended by the Housing Design and Programme Working Group to undertake responsibility for the Byker Redevelopment, initially to reappraise the proposals made by the Housing Architect's Department the previous year. He endorsed the building of a barrier block, and based his design on that for his uncompleted mining town of Svappavaara, Sweden (1963), where a barrier block was conceived as a way of creating a microclimate in its south-facing lee. Something of the same effect is achieved here, and the south-facing balconies and flats also make the most of the remarkable views. `Lack of windows on the outer side, and the forest of red and yellow ventilators, make it look very strong, yet the decorative style appears casual ... If there is something marvellously lighthearted about the design, this I would say is the topographical keynote of the new Byker' (Architectural Design, June 1975, p.333). The modular metric brick of 290mm x 90mm x 65mm was developed by Crossley and Sons in County Durham, in collaboration with the City of Newcastle. When mortared, it forms a 12" by 4" by 3" unit. The design of the wall reflected Newcastle's policy by the late 1960s of not placing family units above the ground floor, while the small upper maisonettes reflected the large need for one-bedroomed accommodation to serve the high proportion of elderly people then forming the Byker community.
Sources
Progressive Architecture, vol.60, no.8, August 1979, pp.68-73
Architectural Design, June 1975, p.333-8
Northern Architect, no. 3, January 1975, pp.30-3
Ralph Erskine's Arkitecktkontor, Summary of Architectural and Planning Aspects of the Byker Development, n.d. c.1976
Architecture d'Aujourd'hui, no. 187, October/November 1976, pp.51-5
Architectural Review, December 1974, pp.346-62
Mats Egelius, Ralph Erskine, Architect, Stockholm 1990, pp.148-60
